“Post Blackness in Contemporary America." - Touré

Wednesday March 7, 2012

On Friday, February 10, 2012, AADS hosted guest speaker Touré who gave the lecture “Post Blackness in Contemporary America." The event, which brought together students, faculty, community members and leaders, featured a stimulating presentation on Touré’s thought provoking and recently published book, “WHO’S AFRAID OF POST-BLACKNESS? What It Means to Be Black Now” (2011).

After Touré’s lecture, two of our AADS Graduate students, Jheanell Haynes and Charles May engaged Touré in a post lecture discussion, with their comments on his book, which they had read during the recent Christmas break. Jhanelle shared with the audience her critical commentary of the book which mostly consisted in deploring the fact that even though Touré was preoccupied to de-essentialize blackness, something she applauded to, his arguments lacked a substantive acknowledgement of the non-US forms of Blackness that can be found in the immigrant communities in the US major cities.

Charles engaged Touré with what he sensed as the elitist dimension of Touré’s argument. This he viewed as a contemporary re-presentation of DuBois’ notion of the “talented tenth” (WE Dubois). Charles respectfully regretted the fact that the book failed to deal with class. The event was very and well attended. It showcased the intellectual ability of our graduate students and their ability to critically engage with visible public intellectuals. They admirably showed how sophisticated the field of African diaspora studies is.